


I Don't Want To Be Your Canary

by peridot734



Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 22:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21233981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peridot734/pseuds/peridot734
Summary: After the death of Queen Brahne, Dagger reflects.Written for the prompt: "birds"





	I Don't Want To Be Your Canary

He had called her “my canary.”

The word startled her, to hear it from the mouth of one who had caused so much destruction in her life. Especially since it is what her mother had called her, once upon a time.

The domesticated canary: a bird that sits in a cage and sings. Bred to look pretty, kept to sound pretty, to not cause trouble or get in the way. These past few years in the castle, that is what she had felt like. Every discordant note she uttered had been ignored; no one had the patience for a cacophonous songbird.

Ironically, she had felt most free when she was doing the one thing that canaries are supposed to do: sing. At the top of the tower, giving voice to a song she had known forever, she felt closest to herself.

So why does the caged bird sing? To summon memories of when it was free. Only she hadn’t known it, then… 

Perhaps he had heard her. Perhaps he had stopped to look up, wondering where the music came from. Perhaps he had smiled, had enquired of her to the guards, had been told of her power. Perhaps then, he had seen her for what she was.

A thing in a cage.

Perhaps this made him laugh.

Perhaps it was then that he began planning to use her, and not just her mother.

How long had he known that she was from Madain Sari? How long had her mother known?

She rubbed her forehead, searching again as she had searched so many times before for a lump, a hardness, anything to indicate she had once had a horn. She felt nothing. The surgeons had done their jobs well.

Her hand dropped down to find her mother’s cold fingers, resting on the bier beside her. The voyage back to Alexandria had been a solemn one. There was plenty of time to think. Plenty of time to wonder what she could have done differently. Plenty of time, yes, to rage at the turn of events that had led her to this place, and had led to her mother lying dead at her feet.

If only she had been more courageous. If only she had done more to protect her kingdom. If only she had seen the danger sooner.

But a canary is bred to look pretty, and to sing, and that is what she had done. And when she couldn’t bear it any longer, she had flown her cage -- only to find herself in a cage of a different kind. One of grief, and failure, and destruction.

A cage built by Kuja. That fiend. What did he want?

His familiar tone unnerved her. He spoke as though he knew her, though she did not know him. How dare he?

Well, she couldn’t be a canary anymore, let alone his canary. No. Now, she had to be a queen. And this queen… 

This queen would be free of cages.


End file.
